


Of All Possessions

by Daegaer



Series: Mars Assassins [22]
Category: Fix Bay'nets - George Manville Fenn, Weiß Kreuz
Genre: 19th Century, AU, Archaeology, Assassins & Hitmen, Friendship, Gen, Historical, Psychic Abilities, Reunions, Victorian Science Fiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-08
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-25 10:43:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4957288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daegaer/pseuds/Daegaer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Schuldig's reunion with an old friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of All Possessions

" _Mon Dieu_ ," said the young man, his surprise not so great that he neglected carefully to deposit the stone box he had been examining upon the damp floor of the passageway. He stared at Schuldig in stupefaction, one hand raised to his head in astonishment. "It cannot be - Schuldig! You're alive!"

"So it would appear," said Schuldig, "although these catacombs are the sort of lonely place one would expect a ghost, if one had suddenly become overtaken by superstition, are they not, Antoine? I fancy I am too well-dressed to be a spectre, however, this suit is not a shroud by any means!" He held up a warning hand as his interlocutor stepped forwards too quickly. "Wait." It would be an unfortunate thing, he thought, to find he needed to kill an old friend so soon after finding him. Farfarello would laugh at him most cruelly, and Crawford would not quickly listen again to his theories on how best to proceed in gaining allies.

"No, sorry, I'm just - " said Antoine, in seeming honest, confused delight, and thrust out a hand, seizing Schuldig's and shaking it warmly. "You cannot know, you _cannot_ \- oh, well of course you can. D--- it, man, don't you know it was rumoured amongst all the boys that those fiends had killed you?"

"Killed me?" laughed Schuldig gaily. "I'm hard to kill; ask Ärgerlich. How long _was_ it before he walked again?"

Antoine shook his head in his old mixture of awe and horror at Schuldig's devilry. "Long enough," he said. He smiled, still holding tight to Schuldig's hand. "They said you must surely have told me what you were going to do. The instructors let some of the prefects question me before they started in on me themselves. I'm so glad I couldn't tell them anything."

Schuldig carefully extracted his hand from Antoine's grasp, glad that the young man had not the supernatural power to discern information from touching living beings, but only from objects. "You must believe that I will make that up to you," he said. "I didn't mean for you to be harmed."

"Of course you didn't! I never blamed you for a moment!"

Schuldig looked on him with great skepticism, brushing water from his sleeve in some irritation as it dripped from the ceiling. For his part, he thought, he would have called down all the devils of hell upon anyone who left him in such straits. He peered down at the stone box on the floor in annoyance, wishing he could shatter it and all other such antiquarian _objets_ with a blow of his mind. Why had Antoine seemed to be truly interested in studying the blasted thing? And why had he said such a stupid, soft, fat-headed thing to Schuldig? It made him feel quite queerly put out. How could anyone have lived through the Schloß, he thought, and still be as Antoine seemed to be? He must have simply become a better liar, that was all, and good for him.

"You should have told them anything you could have thought of," he said, wondering what lie his old friend would devise to his next question. "Why on earth would you want to keep faith with a nameless boy mind reader anyway? You know what sort of wild things creatures like me are."

Antoine simply laughed at him and seized both his hands. "Why don't you read my mind?" he said. "Go on, I shall attempt to erect no walls against you, I shall lay flat my defences before you."

"Here now," said Schuldig in alarm, "don't say that sort of thing to me, it's like putting a fish before a cat, and I play with my food."

"Go on," said Antoine. "I trust you. I always have."

"Oh!" ejaculated Schuldig, "what a horrible thing to say to me!"

He flinched as Antoine threw his arms about him, weeping suddenly in his joy at seeing Schuldig once more. Schuldig for his part stood frozen in his embrace, thinking, "Now he will certainly try to stab me in the back," but nothing happened other than his new suit was dampened with tears as well as drips from the tunnel. It was hard not to lash out with his powers, but the fear of striking such a soft fool dead when he wanted him alive held him back. Instead he allowed himself to peer within Antoine's mind, horrified beyond belief that his old school friend had indeed erected no walls to impede him, and found only old sorrow over his own presumed death, erased now by joy over their reunion. It was all at once too much, and he allowed himself to put his own arms about Antoine, and to weep a little also, although he would never admit as much afterwards.

For the moment, however, he was, as it were, transported back to his childhood, and was relieved to find that Antoine was as he had been in the Schloß, a comforting presence who asked nothing more than to like him and be liked in return.

 

**Author's Note:**

>  _The most precious of all possessions is a wise and loyal friend._ Herodotus, Book 5.


End file.
